/m/rockies

Reader Comments and Retorts

Statements posted here are those of our readers and do not represent the BaseballThinkFactory. Names are provided by the poster and are not verified. We ask that posters follow our submission policy. Please report any inappropriate comments.

* He's not afraid to put rookies in the lineup. This year, when Troy Tulowitzki got hurt, Tracy slapped Josh Rutledge out of AA into the lineup at shortstop and basically left him there the entire season.

* He uses the entire roster. If you play for Jim Tracy, you better expect to be on the field a lot.

* He's patient with a player if he thinks he can do the job. He's more than willing to wait out slumps.

* At least in Colorado, he was always very positive and well-liked.

And he's got some serious drawbacks, too:

* He's a very poor judge of talent. He doesn't seem to have any grasp of what makes a decent offense, so he ends up playing the kind of players he likes: grinders, aggressive players, guys who swing at a lot of pitches. He seems to make a lot of decisions about who can play based solely on the players' attitudes; boy, did they love Michael Cuddyer out here. He especially likes high-average hitters who don't do much else offensively.

* In a related issue, he doesn't like passive players, which means guys who will take ball four. The Rockies traded away several of their most patient hitters over the last off-season, including Seth Smith and Chris Iannetta. Dexter Fowler, who was probably the best player on the Rockies this year, had to fight for playing time early in the season, and ended up leading the team in walks with just 68.

* He's not much of a strategist. His lineup decisions are all over the map, and he wants very strict roles for his bullpen guys. He's terrible at knowing when to pinch-hit for his starting pitcher.

It's not a surprise that his two biggest successes, the 2004 Dodgers and the 2009 Rockies, came when he first took over the team. If the talent is already there, he does a pretty good job of giving it room to succeed. Once he starts making decisions about who can play and who can't, though, he's sunk.

Jim Tracy took over a club that was 10 games under .500 in 2009. The team proceeded to go 74-42 and take the wild card. Evil and otherwise middling though he may be, that's about as close as one can get to a MoY lock.

Can you elaborate? I don't follow the team closely enough to know what he's like day-to-day, but it seems like every time his name pops up in the news, he's throwing one of his players under the bus. I also remember him insisting that one of the Rockies' pitchers be available to play on the same day as the birth of his child, or the death of a family member, or something similarly heartless. I can't seem to find that story now, though.

Can you elaborate? I don't follow the team closely enough to know what he's like day-to-day, but it seems like every time his name pops up in the news, he's throwing one of his players under the bus. I also remember him insisting that one of the Rockies' pitchers be available to play on the same day as the birth of his child, or the death of a family member, or something similarly heartless. I can't seem to find that story now, though.

You may be confusing his Rockie stint with posts from Vlad during his Rockie stint whenever Tracy has been mentioned in a thread.

Seriously, Tom follows the Rockies about as closely as anyone here, and, in contrast to other Tracy trackers at Primer, he's not insane. I'd trust his scouting report.

Can you elaborate? I don't follow the team closely enough to know what he's like day-to-day, but it seems like every time his name pops up in the news, he's throwing one of his players under the bus.

I do not recall him doing this to the Rockies. A couple of players have said that to a man, the team wanted him back, which doesn't sound like a team that gets thrown under the bus. Even this season, with all the horrible play, he was gentle with his public criticism--"we have to throw strikes," "you can't throw 60 pitches in the first 3 innings," etc. I don't consider that throwing someone under the bus--there were no Bobby Valentine type comments that I can recall.

I definitely don't recall the death of the child thing. Though my attention certainly waned this season.

Crispix posted in the other thread that "he told Salomon Torres and Jack Wilson to come back early from paternity leave in mid-September, because missing both of them would mean he might be accused of fielding a not-strong-enough team against playoff contenders." This must be what I was thinking of.

Nawrocki's assessment is pretty spot on. The Rockies went on that run in 09 because it was a decent team and no one was hitting early in the season. Jimenez, de la Rosa, Hammel, Marquis and Cook had a great stretch of starts after Tracy took over. Tulowitzki became star material. Tracy gave CarGo a shot in left, he struggled early on but had a great 2nd half. Fowler emerged in CF. Helton was healthy. Hawpe had his last good season. Everything worked out. Was the success due to Tracy?

It seemed like in 2009 he was able to pick out the right guys and let them play. Early that year Clint Hurdle had been messing with Ian Stewart at 2nd base, had Cargo in AAA and had Dexter Fowler and SEth Smith in and out of the lineup. Tracy seemed to figure Stewart was decent at 3rd, gave Cargo, Fowler and Smith roles and of course Helton and Tulo gave them great years.

My question is how much power did he have in the purge last winter? First getting rid of Ubaldo then all the patient low average power type guys. Then he has dicked around with Dexter Fowler since 2009 with him getting benched every time he takes a called strike 3. All to get EY some CF time it seems.